


Second Death

by Romiress



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Lazarus Pit, Physical Abuse, Time Skips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:07:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22141537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Romiress/pseuds/Romiress
Summary: Jason wakes in a Lazarus pit for the second time and is forced, once again, to put the pieces together.Inspired bythis artby JJMK-JJMK.
Relationships: Jason Todd & Damian Wayne
Comments: 75
Kudos: 614





	1. Chapter 1

Jason's throat burns. It feels like he's swallowed pure fire as he breaks the surface, coughing and sputtering. What's happening seems to go by in flashes, tiny blotches of the situation around him that are like pieces of a puzzle.

The problem is that he doesn't know what the puzzle's supposed to look like. He can't put them together and get the details. His memory is a fog, and the dim lighting in the area certainly isn't helping. There's green, though. He's standing in a green pool, and that... that drags a memory up.

A Lazarus pit, his brain fills in. He's in a Lazarus pit.

The thought sticks in his brain for a few seconds before it really kicks in.

A _Lazarus pit._

"What—"

Someone grabs his wrist, tugging him hard enough he loses his footing. He's supposed to be better than this, but his body feels like it's been filled with lead as he breaks the surface again, staring up in confusion at the person who just pulled at his wrist.

It's a man. There's familiarity in the face, but absolutely not in the clothing. He's wearing something tight and form fitting, cloth so dark green it's almost black, with the faintest hint of gold thread around the edges. His shoulders are clearly exposed, but there's nothing really modest about the outfit: it leaves _very_ little to the imagination.

The guy's extremely muscular, but Jason's having a hard time focusing on that. It's the familiarity that does it as he stares up in confusion, but also the pained look the man's wearing. He looks like someone's just torn his goddamn heart out.

"Who... what the fuck is this?" Jason asks, shoving himself back upright and reeling backwards just as fast. The Lazarus pit isn't bothering him, and he's pretty sure it should.

"Come with me," the man says, and there's familiarity there.

But the familiarity doesn't change Jason's answer.

"Fuck no," He says, trying to retreat. He doesn't know who the man is, but it doesn't matter. He's in the Lazarus pit. This is Ra's territory. Nothing about this is good, and he needs to... he needs to find Bruce. Bruce will know the answer.

But Bruce's name feels like a knife to the head, and he makes a pained wheeze, his hands going up to press against his head. His skull feels like it's splitting open, and he doesn't have nearly enough control to stop the man from taking his arm, pulling him along with him.

"You need to come," the man says. "Don't look behind you."

His body feels impossibly heavy as he's pulled from the pit. There are men there—nameless, faceless men from the League of Shadows—but he doesn't have the strength to argue as he's bundled up.

He's in his gear still, he realizes. His helmet's missing, but he's still wearing what he always wore as Red Hood. There are cuts and slashes in his shirt (even without the corresponding injuries on his skin), but the front of his shirt's been ripped away entirely.

The Batsymbol is gone. That feels important somehow, but he can't place why.

Jason doesn't mean to sleep. He needs to stay awake, to take in every detail. But the exhaustion feels like a physical weight dragging him down, and they're not even away from the pit before he loses consciousness.

When he wakes, he's somewhere _soft._ After the ache of waking up in the pit the change is painfully obvious, and Jason does what he can to take stock of his situation. His clothes are gone. Someone's changed him into something soft and light, made of a gorgeous black silk. There's red thread around the edges, and Jason realizes that it all but matches the clothes the man was wearing.

Which doesn't bode well. He can guess that he's with the League, but that's the tiniest, smallest hint towards what must be a much larger puzzle. The room's plush in the way that League leadership rooms are, reminding him strongly of Talia, and he's just about to start tearing it apart when the door opens.

It's the same man as before. Tall, broad shouldered and heavily muscled, he'd probably pass as a movie star without question. His skin's flawless, his black hair kept nice and neat, but even at a distance it's hard to miss the piercing green of his eyes.

 _Lazarus pit green,_ Jason registers. The same color his eyes were for years until the effect finally wore off.

"Good," the man says. "I was worried you wouldn't wake for even longer."

The statement invites as many questions as it answers.

"I want to know where I am," Jason says. That's step one. Find out who he is. Find out who's holding him. He needs to get his baring. He needs to know... well, a lot of things. Trying to figure out where he last was makes his head throb, so he simply doesn't, leaving it for later.

To his surprise, the man makes no attempt to avoid the questions.

"You're in the headquarters of the League of Assassins," he says as if it's the simplest thing in the world.

"How long— how long has it been since I was in the pit?"

It feels like minutes, but the fact that his body is only _barely_ sore tells him it's been much longer.

"Three days."

It's all too easy. He's just _giving_ Jason the answers. The League never does that, so Jason presses his advantage for more information.

"And who are you, then?"

A pained look flashes across the man's face so fast that Jason isn't even sure he saw it at all.

"I think you already know."

"Obviously I don't, or I wouldn't have asked," Jason says, which absolutely isn't true. There's value in asking questions you already know the answers to, if only to confirm whether or not someone's going to lie to you.

But even if he asked—even if he claimed he didn't know—the more he looks, the more convinced he becomes.

"Heretic," Jason says, and there's another momentarily pained look. Heretic probably has a name by now, but Jason's sure as hell not going to use it. "Or another one of the clones."

The answer is not immediate as the man looks him over, but finally he does nod.

"Yes," he says. "Call me what you'd like."

"Fraud."

He expects anger. Heretic was never exactly the most stable of people, but the man in front of him doesn't seem angry. If anything, he seems almost _upset,_ but the clear sense of melancholy feels like it's been there the whole time.

"If you'd like."

Things aren't playing out the way he expected. There's no violence. There aren't any threats.

"So what's going on here?" Jason asks, frustration starting to bubble up. None of it makes sense. He wants to know what the hell's going on. It's not like there's a gap in his memory, a missing piece that would explain how he ended up in the Lazarus pit: everything before the pit is the same amorphous _nothing._ There's no clear point he can mark as the _last thing he remembers,_ either. 

"You'll need time to recover," Fraud says. "Your old clothes were damaged, so they were removed. You'll remain here until you're capable of functioning on your own."

"And then what, I leave?" There's anger in his voice because he knows the answer's going to be _no._

"If you'd like."

More than anything else, that catches him off guard. It's possible he's lying, but even that doesn't make sense. Why string him along? Why pretend like he could leave rather than laying it out?

"I want to talk to Ra's."

He doesn't _really_ want to talk to Ra's, but he wants what he represents: something Jason actually understands. He knows how Ra's works. He knows what Ra's wants, and what he'll do to get it.

He doesn't know _anything_ about the man in front of him. Not really. He doesn't even know if he's the same clone that killed Damian or not. For all he knows he's a new one.

"I'm afraid that won't be possible."

Something about the way he says it makes Jason feel sick. There's something wrong. He _knows_ there's something wrong.

"Why not?"

"Grand— Ra's al Ghul has passed. He is no longer the Demon's Head."

Jason feels sick. The bile's rising in his throat, the panic coming just after. He isn't stupid. He knows what it all means. His brain's putting together the pieces as fast as he tries to shove them away.

Everything about the situation is _wrong._

"How... how long was I dead?"

It's the only thing that makes any sort of sense. He was dead. Or in a coma, or something close enough to dead. Than he was brought back. It wouldn't be the first time, and the mechanics of the pits have always eluded him. It doesn't really matter. What matters is how _long,_ and the man in front of him, who has been nothing but candid about everything else, is in no hurry to elaborate.

 _"How long was I dead?"_ Jason hisses, his horror warring with anger. Anger feels easier, but he can't stay that way. Every time he tries he just slides back towards the realization he refuses to let himself have.

"Approximately ten years," the man says. "Your body was kept in cold storage until an appropriate solution could be found."

Ten years. He's been dead for _ten years._

Jason can't stop himself from vomiting. All he can do is turn to the side, retching up the contents of his stomach—mostly green fluid that Jason no longer has to wonder about.

He died. He died and this man—the man looking at him with such a sad, sad expression—brought him back.

He no longer needs to ask questions.

"Damian," Jason says, speaking the word out loud with a tone of fear.

Like saying it out loud is going to make it true. He's not looking at an adult clone of Damian. He's looking at _Damian,_ all grown up in the years since he died. A Damian who has, without question, taken his place at the head of the League.

Jason wants to be sick again.

"Yes," Damian says where he stands, looking down at Jason.

"No," Jason chokes. He doesn't want this. He's just woken up and he already wants to sleep again, because the alternative isn't one he wants to think about. "How— how the hell did I even die?"

"Jason—"

"Just tell me."

"No," Damian says, and Jason swings his head around to yell—god, does he desperately want to yell at someone—only to find another pained look on Damian's face. This one doesn't vanish when Jason looks at him, either.

"I need to know."

"If you could spend the rest of your life not knowing, that would be better," Damian says. "I would do anything in my power to keep that from you."

Which means it's terrible. Which means that there's some terribly secret to it, something that Damian wants to keep from him. But he's not going to just accept that. He's not just going to take _you're better off not knowing_ at face value.

"Tell me, Damian. You can't keep it from me."

He pushes himself to his feet, ignoring the mess he made, and advances on Damian where he stands. Damian holds his ground, staring him down.

"No."

"You can't just keep it from me," he says. "I'm going to leave, I'll go back to Gotham, and someone _there_ will tell me."

Gotham. He can't even imagine what it must be like ten years on. How much has it changed? Who's been lost in the ten years since then? Does anyone even know he's here?

"I can," Damian says firmly, "and I will. You aren't ready."

Jason runs his brain through every terrible possibility. That he was killed by friendly fire. That someone was a traitor. He remembers working with the Outlaws, and wonders if it's that. Did Lex regain control of Bizarro? Or is it something closer to home—for all he knows, Huntress or Signal or one of the newer members betrayed him.

Or maybe it's something else.

Maybe it's the fact that he wasn't the only one who died, just the only one Damian brought back.

His legs wobble under him, and Damian reaches out, catching his arm.

"Return to your bed," Damian says, his tone somewhere between an order and a request. "I'll have someone come clean things up for you."

Jason really, _really_ wants to argue. He wants to fight Damian on it, arguing until he can't anymore. But his throat feels raw and painful, and even as he tries, tears of frustration well in the corners of his eyes.

He hates everything about this. He hates that he's been gone. He hates how little he knows, and how he understands even less.

"Rest," Damian says, easing him back onto the bed, and Jason has no option but to comply.

The man—or it might be a woman, Jason can't tell under the heavy covering—who comes to clean the room doesn't speak to him, and Jason's pretty sure that isn't a coincidence. Even if the League's under Damian's control now, there's also no question that it's still the same League he remembers.

He doesn't mean to sleep, but he ends up falling asleep anyway, exhaustion catching up to him.


	2. Chapter 2

When Jason wakes, he has plans for what he should be doing. He needs to work out the layout of the building he's being held in. He needs to figure out the exact location (saying the headquarters of the League isn't really enough, considering it's been ten years, and even if it _hadn't_ been ten years he couldn't have guessed which of the three or four locations was being talked about).

More than anything else, he needs to regain control of his body. He feels weak and disoriented a lot of the time, his body no longer acting the way he remembered. Damian tells him—when Jason risks asking—that it will pass in time. 

"You were dead a long time," Damian reminds him, and it feels like a knife to his belly.

The rest of the League gives him a wide berth. The place he's being kept (if he can even call it that) isn't really the base itself, just Damian's quarters within some much larger building. It takes him most of the next day to find the door he assumes is the entrance, only it's locked. He knows there must be other ways in and out, but he's too weak to find them right then, and in the end it's Damian who finds him slumped against a wall in a long hallway, unable to get up. Damian winds his arm across Jason's back and hauls him up, the easy strength there making the trip back to Jason's room easy.

"You should rest," Damian reminds him. "Your body needs time to heal."

The food he's fed is excellent, obviously prepared by a chef, and also completely alien to Jason's experience. The spices are different, the techniques foreign to him. This is League cooking at it's best, and while it's delicious, it's just another reminder of how far he is from home.

He attempts to broach the only subject that matters more each time Damian visits him, but Damian is obviously split on the matter. For some things, he doesn't hesitate to answer: he tells Jason about the foods he's eating and the building he's in. He talks freely about the League and the changes he's made since he took over. He even tells Jason about Talia—still alive, but interested in taking over for her father—and about Ra's death.

"The pit made him mad," Damian tells him. "It's always affected his mind, but more and more he was being changed by it. He was, in many ways, no longer recognizable as the man who helped raise me."

"So you put him down," Jason says quietly. That's the not-so-subtle implication of it all: that Damian took the position by force.

"I challenged him for it," Damian says. "He accepted and he lost. He was buried with honor and the League was given a new chance."

"Bruce must have hated that."

Damian doesn't respond. He never does when Jason brings up Gotham or those who lived in it. He won't talk about Dick or Tim or Bruce or Alfred, no matter how Jason needles him for information.

But even if he's desperate to learn about all those things, Jason's also interested in the matters Damian _will_ discuss with him. He learns that Damian's course corrected the League, bringing the focus back towards bettering humanity and saving the planet they live on. He learns that Damian's made new alliances, and that the League's membership has grown.

"We're not longer a cult," Damian points out. "That was Grandfather's mistake. A cult worked hundreds of years ago, but in the modern day people who want to help save the planet are less interested in worshiping someone flesh and blood, even if they are effectively immortal."

"You're using the pit," Jason observes, looking Damian over. It isn't a question, because the scars he knows Damian should have are no longer there.

"Yes," Damian confirms. "Sparingly. I've already prepared things so that, in time, when I am no longer fit to lead, the position will be handed off to a successor."

"You've got a kid?"

He seems young for that, but that doesn't really mean anything with the League. For all he knows Ra's had a bride picked out for Damian from the moment he was born.

"No," Damian says. "I've taken no bride. The al Ghul line will no doubt end with me. It would be better that way for the League. Monarchies never bring a country to their full potential, and the same rules apply here."

Everything he's learned weighs on Jason when he sleeps that night. There are so many details, so many little clues, but the greater picture eludes him. He doesn't know what it all _means,_ and trying to put it together makes his head throb.

"Why don't I remember?" He asks Damian over breakfast the following morning. To his credit, Damian makes no attempt at asking _remember what?_ the way others might have.

"You suffered extreme trauma," Damian says. "I don't remember my own death much either, and mine was more... direct."

More direct.

"What does that mean?"

"We shouldn't talk about it."

Jason feels a spark of frustration, but he snuffs it as fast as it happens. Damian is his only ally in this place. The only advantages he has are the ones Damian provides for him, and he can't risk setting him off. But more than that: Damian _does_ say he's allowed to go home when he's better, even if it's obvious to him that Damian's hoping he'll choose otherwise.

But Jason has no reason to choose the League. Damian might have abandoned Gotham and the rest of the Bats, but Jason certainly hasn't.

Jason's first week with the League feels slow and stuttering. Jason sleeps a great deal, more than he knows he should, but his body needs the rest and Damian doesn't chide him for it. He eats a great deal, and when everything else is done he stares out the few windows in Damian's quarters, trying to get the lay of the land.

He doesn't recognize it at all. What he can see is unfamiliar and alien, and only leaves Jason feeling more isolated than before.

Inevitably, Damian finds him during one of those low periods, curled up on the ground with his face in his hands. Everything that's happened—his death and his isolation from others—weighs on him too heavily to hold back the tears of frustration when they come. He's never felt so helpless, and Damian is a poor outlet. Damian doesn't fight back when Jason swings on him, but catches his wrist instead, holding Jason in place to keep him from hurting either one of them.

"I want to leave," Jason says desperately. "Send me back to Gotham so I... so I can figure out what the hell this all _is._ Just put me back so I can figure this out."

Damian's expression is pained as he pulls Jason forward, tugging him into a hug. It feels alien and strange, and lasts only for a second before Jason lashes out again, shoving Damian back.

"Stop!" He says. He doesn't mean to yell, but it's a yell anyway, all the frustration that's been building up since he first woke in the pit bubbling to the surface. "Stop pretending like you're my friend when you won't even tell me what's going on. Do— does anyone even know I'm here? Or am I just your captive forever?"

Jason's sure he knows the answer, but it hurts hearing anyway.

"No one else knows you're here," he says. "Only the League. Ra's ensured your body vanished, but it was never linked back to him."

"Fuck you," Jason snaps. "Fuck you, and fuck Ra's. You said I could leave when I was better, and I'm as better as I'm going to get in this prison. Send me home. Put me on a plane and send me back to Gotham and then we can never speak again."

Damian's expression is one of unimaginable pain. It's almost enough to make Jason feel bad, but then he remembers the hard, cold expression Damian had worn when he'd pulled him out of the pit and it makes it that much easier to be cruel to him.

"Are you going to send me back, or am I just your captive? Because if I'm going to be a prisoner, I'd rather you be up front about it."

"Jason—"

"Don't even call me that. Don't act like you care. If you cared, you'd have told me what the hell's going on ages ago rather than trying to force me to live in ignorance. Ignorance is _never_ bliss, Damian, and we both know it."

Damian's expression slides back to the same neutral coldness he always wears.

"It wasn't an accident," Damian says. "You were murdered in a fit of rage. Do you remember why?"

He draws closer, and it takes all of Jason's nerve to stand his ground. Damian's taller than he is now, even if only by an inch or two, and just as broad. He's not used to feeling small, and feeling small next to _Damian_ feels painfully jarring.

"I don't remember shit," Jason says, "and you haven't told me, either."

"You shot the Penguin," Damian says. "You were angry because he was responsible for your father leaving you behind. You didn't intend to kill him—you fired a blank—but you shot him anyway on live TV."

That sounds... familiar. It _feels_ familiar, dragging up memories that have been resting for a decade. He shot the penguin. He can almost remember it, but the memories aren't quite right. It's like he's watching someone else do it, his brain giving him a comfortable distance from what's happening whether he wants it or not.

"So?"

But even as Jason says it, the memories are already sliding back. Artemis... Artemis and Bizarro were in trouble. There was something wrong with their base. He reaches up, pressing the base of his palm to his forehead and pressing, trying desperately to ease the pain that sprouts there. There was danger. Something was happening, and the memory is right on the tip of his tongue.

"Don't," Damian says. "Don't make yourself remember."

"I need to know," Jason says desperately. "I need to know what the hell this is. I need to know what's going on, I need to... I need to _understand,_ and I don't right now."

He doesn't understand any of it.

The memories are coming back, bit by bit. Things are sliding into place. He remembers Bruce on the rooftop. He remembers Bruce being angry. BIzarro saving him. Artemis and Bizarro being lost, maybe even killed. Being on the roof...

Jason makes a pained noise and suddenly there's arms around him again, Damian pulling him into an overly tight hug.

"Don't remember."

But it's too late. He can't stop himself from remembering. He can't prevent the memories from coming back, from snapping into place. Bruce hitting him so hard he smashed the front of his helmet. The feel of his arm breaking. The anger in Bruce's voice, his face hidden by that stupid, stupid cowl.

"Bruce," Jason says, his voice choked.

He remembers. Not his death, but enough. What lead to it. The steps that guided him to that point. But more than that: he _understands._ He knows why Damian wanted him to live in ignorance. He knows why Damian went to live with the League. He knows why Damian doesn't want him going back to Gotham.

"Bruce did this," Jason says again. He needs to say it allowed. He needs to hear the words, even if from his own mouth. "Bruce killed me."

Damian pulls him that much tighter against him, clutching Jason against his chest. Jason expects that to be it, his emotions done, but his brain won't let him rest. His brain can't stop running through it, over and over again.

"Tell me what happened."

He needs to know the other side. He needs to know what Damian knows.

"You had internal bleeding when Bruce handed you over to the Gotham police. They took you to the hospital. Bruce... Bruce guarded the hospital to make sure no one was going to try and break you out."

"And I died," Jason says. His voice no longer sounds like his own. "I died alone, handcuffed to a hospital bed, and none of you knew about it."

Damian doesn't speak. Instead, he nods once, brief and to the point.

Jason doesn't remember that. He doubts he ever regained consciousness after he lost it that last time on the roof. But he can imagine it. He can picture it in his mind's eye, can imagine how he must have looked. He already has plenty of hints. The suit he was in when he woke up is no doubt the same suit he was in when he was in the hospital, the bat ripped right off his chest, the final rejection.

"What happened?"

"Drake found out from a police contact that the Red Hood had been taken in. When he went to check on you, you were already gone. He... they—"

It's painful. It's painful not just for him, but for Damian as well, and it's clear that he doesn't want to talk about it at all. But Jason can't give him that freedom. He needs to know. He has to understand what happened, how things played out.

"The family fought. Bruce wouldn't recognize the part he played in your death. Everyone went their separate ways. Pennyworth and Drake went together. Dick was already... you know that part."

"Your grandfather came for you."

He realizes only than what's wrong about Damian's story. It's not _Father,_ it's _Bruce._ Impartial. Separate. Maybe _Wanye_ is just too confusing for him.

Is he even still a Wayne?

"He'd heard what had happened," Damian says. "He knew who the Red Hood was. Even... even with his mental state as degraded as it was, he was still horrified. He couldn't believe what had happened. He... he took me away. He offered Drake a place in the League, if he wanted it, but he wouldn't have it."

The family's gone. Everyone's split up. Whatever Jason might have had waiting for him back in Gotham is gone.

He wants to ask where everyone is right then, but he can't. His throat feels dry.

Bruce killed him. Bruce beat him so badly he _died._

Jason feels sick, and he knows that feeling isn't going to go away anytime soon.


	3. Chapter 3

Jason no longer asks questions. He doesn't _want_ to know any more, so he keeps his mouth shut. There are other things for him to do, and the desire to leave the place of safety Damian's made for him is no longer there.

Gotham isn't home anymore, if it ever was at all.

He spends his time recovering instead. Physically he's no longer where he was, and he returns to his old workout routine in an attempt to recover the muscle lost in the past few weeks. He eats, and at one point, recognizing his clear desire to do _something,_ Damian lets him leave the inner sanctum of the League and shows him to the kitchen.

The staff—if they can even be called that—tend to give him a wide berth, but as time goes on they become less wary. They speak in a language Jason doesn't understand, something he guesses must be a local dialect, and while they never end up speaking _to_ him, they sometimes speak _around_ him in such a way that he can almost sort of follow.

He learns the words for certain ingredients. He knows _chop_ and _cut_ and _yes_ and _no._

But he also learns what they call him.

"What's _Nain?"_ Jason asks one evening as he eats with Damian. The question alone is enough to make the other man stop, his silence telling. Nain is _important._

"It's not just Nain," Damian says. "Nain's only a particle."

"Then translate the whole thing for me," Jason says. "It's what they call me. I should know what I'm being called."

"Child of the Nain pit," Damian says. "Since I know you're about to ask, the Nain pit is how you came back."

"...Not a Lazarus pit?"

"A different kind. Lazarus pits struggle when it comes to reviving those that are already dead. The Nain pit doesn't have that limitation."

The explanation leaves plenty of new questions for Jason to pick over. Really, he's relieved—he needs some kind of mental stimulation. Something to distract him.

"So the Nain pit is a better Lazarus pit."

"It doesn't heal," Damian says with a shake of his heat. "I originally assumed I could bring you back with a normal pit, since you'd been so carefully preserved. But the freezing did too much damage to your body, and it was a failure."

"So you dunked me to no effect," Jason says, trying to sound flippant. "So you used the Nain pit instead." Now that he thinks about it... "That's why I'm not pit-mad. Because it's not the same way I came back last time."

"The Nain pit doesn't have the same side effects."

The Nain pit seems flat out _better,_ which really begs the question as to why he hasn't heard of it before. It seems like the sort of thing he _should_ have heard about, and the fact that he hasn't...

"What's the catch?"

"Do you remember when I told you that you would be happier not knowing?"

"I need to know, Damian," Jason says. He's tired of not knowing. He's tired of playing that kind of stupid game, pretending like he'd even be capable of living in that kind of ignorance. He needs to know. There's no other option for him.

"You don't need to know," Damian says, and there's anger in his voice. "You could spend the rest of your life here. You could be happy here. You don't _need_ to know what happened to you the same way you don't _need_ to know what I did to bring you back."

Which only gives him more questions.

Jason is so tired of questions right then.

"I don't even— I don't get why you did," Jason blurts, and the room is dead silent for a solid thirty seconds while Damian seems to process the statement.

Jason does what he can to clarify.

"Listen, Dami," Jason says. "I know I was never your favorite brother, so I'm just a bit... a bit _confused_ —"

"We aren't brothers," Damian says, a hard edge to his voice.

"We—"

"He's not my father. He isn't your father. That man is _no one's_ father." Damian's hands clench into fists, and for someone so in control it's jarring to see the anger so plain on his face.

He's used to _being_ the angry one, not this.

"Listen," Jason says desperately, doing what he can to temper Damian's anger. "I just want to... I just don't get why."

"You should not have died," Damian says, his vanishing fading as quickly as it appeared. Jason has no doubt he's simply tamping it down. "It was an injustice. I simply wanted to... to correct that."

"Because it was Bruce."

"You are— you were supposed to be his son. If he could do that to you, he could no longer be trusted in any way."

"So you left," Jason says. "But anyone else would have been content to just... leave me dead." Like everyone else did. Like they always did.

"You believed in him more than anyone," Damian says. "You died for his cause, and when you came back, you tried to live for it too. In the aftermath of your second death, that much became very clear to me. It became clear to me that you... that you, more than anyone, tried to live by his ideals."

"And look where it got me," Jason says. It's hard to miss how carefully Damian speaks, the way he avoids saying Bruce's name.

Bruce. The less Jason thinks about him, the better. He feels like an open wound, festering and threatening to rot.

Just another person walking around the world who killed him. Jason imagines the Joker must be amused—what better situation for him than being joined in the ever exclusive _killed a Robin club_ by Batman himself?

He wants to know who knows. Does the public? What do they think happened?

But it's been ten years, and he can't make himself ask. Not when it's so obviously a raw wound for Damian.

"Still doesn't seem like your responsibility," Jason says.

"It was my fa— his failing. It was my... I had to make up for it." Damian's clearly tripping over his own explanation. He clearly still thinks of Bruce as his father, but he's also just as clearly desperate not to say those words.

"You didn't have to," Jason points out. It's a responsibility Damian took for himself, but he doesn't _have_ to. "You _could_ have just left me dead." There's an awkward silence, and Jason tries to put his thoughts back in order. He knows what to say, it's just... well, saying it is difficult. "I guess this is just a really roundabout way of saying... thank you. For bringing me back."

He didn't have to. That's the part that Jason's stuck on. Damian didn't _have_ to save him, and yet he did anyway.

The last time he came back to life it was by chance. No one chose to save him.

But this time is different.

This time someone _chose_ to bring him back.

"I only did what was necessary."

"It wasn't," Jason says. "That's the point. It wasn't... no one would have blamed you for leaving things as they were. For burying me and calling it a day. But you didn't."

Damian looks away, and for just a moment he reminds Jason more of the boy he remembers rather than the man sitting in front of him. The boy who always sat in the shadow of great men, struggling to find an identity of his own. The boy who tried desperately to prove himself, no matter what.

"...Will you stay?" Damian asks, his voice soft. "I know it isn't Gotham, but..."

"Gotham doesn't have anything left for me," Jason says. "There's no point going back." Not ten years on. Not after everything that happened. What would he go to see there? The last shattered remnants of the life he was trying to live under Bruce's control? His long empty safe houses?

Everyone he cared about is gone. Of that, Jason has no doubt.

"I'll stay," he says, just in case it's not painfully clear. "I'll need... I need to adjust to life here, but I think you've got a good thing going here. You've done a lot to bring the League to heel. To get it back on track."

"I could still use some assistance in the matter," Damian says.

He's been alone for a long time, but he doesn't have to be any longer.

"Happy to help," Jason says, cracking a smile. "So how long before the League sends Red Hood into the field and gives everyone the scare of their lives?"

Damian braves a small, awkward smile of his own.

"Perhaps a few more weeks. We'll have to ensure your training is up to standard, after all..."

"I know a great teacher," Jason says.

It takes two months before Damian declares his training good enough and sends him out into the world. He goes out of his way to send him to one of the farthest possible places in the world from Gotham, but it doesn't matter.

Jason isn't going to let himself look back. Whatever connection he had with Bruce has been broken, stretched too thin for too long to withstand what happened.

The only thing that matters is the future, and where he goes from there.


End file.
